By Samira Larbie
Accra, July 11, GNA – Civil Society Organisations and some stakeholders in the fight against HIV have asked the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) to bring back HIV and AIDS messages to serve as constant reminders to the public.
It has become necessary to help reduce the number of new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths nationwide.
They said this during a regional technical coordinating meeting organised by the Ghana AIDS Commission Technical Support Unit in Accra.
The meeting saw the dissemination of the 2023 HIV estimates and provided a comprehensive overview of the current HIV epidemic status in Ghana.
Ms Rita Afriyie, Technical Coordinator, Greater Accra, Technical Support Unit of the Ghana AIDS Commission, said the meeting was crucial to discuss the technical response of HIV in the Region to help end AIDS by 2030.
She said out of the 334,095 latest 2023 HIV population, Greater Accra led with 82,745, coming second with a prevalence rate of 1.98 per cent and AIDS-related deaths of 12, 480.
Ms Afriyie urged Ghanaians especially the youth, who have not tested to do so to know their status.
“Young people must educate themselves on HIV and AIDS-related issues as the age cohort of 15 to 24 years of new infections keeps increasing. Use condoms if you cannot abstain and test to know your status,” she added.
She said stigma and discrimination impeded HIV access and services in communities and urged community members to show care and support to persons living with HIV to enable the country to achieve the fast-track target of epidemic control by 2025.
The Technical Coordinator, in response to the call by the stakeholders, said despite the funding constraints the GAC was faced with, it had other targeted interventions to reach its target population and did not always focus on the traditional media.
“So we engage on social media to do education. Despite the financial constraints, we engage the media to get to hard-to-reach communities,” she stated.
She called on the public to donate money to the short *9898# to complement the HIV response.
Dr Owusua A. Owusu-Sarpong, the Greater Accra Regional Director of Health Service, called for intensified HIV education to create the needed awareness of the disease.
She also advised CSOs to help in the fight against stigma and discrimination to have more people walk into health facilities for testing and treatment.
Dr Owusu-Sarpong said the GHS in recent times had opened wellness clinics in all health facilities and urged the public, especially men to make use of such places for checkups and their well-being.
GNA